Writings of John Quincy Adams - Vol. 7

to publish his promised narrative, I shall, if yet living, be
ready with equal cheerfulness to acknowledge indicated
error and to vindicate contested truth.

But as by the adjournment of that publication to a period
"more propitious than the present to calm and dispassionate consideration, and when there can be no misinterpretation
of motives," it may chance to be postponed until both of us
shall have been summoned to account for all our errors
before a higher tribunal than that of our country, I feel
myself now called upon to say that let the appropriate dispositions, when and how they will, expose the open day and
secret night of the transactions at Ghent, the statements
both of fact and opinion, in the papers which I have written
and published in relation to this controversy, will in every
particular, essential or important to the interest of the nation
or to the character of Mr. Clay, be found to abide unshaken
the test of human scrutiny of talents and of time.1

"The insinuations of Mr. Clay are manfully met by Mr. Adams; and I am mistaken if in public opinion Mr. Clay is not placed in a situation that may be found a
little embarrassing. The Kentucky Candidate should have strictly adhered to his
game; agere non scribere was his course, and he has been off his guard to depart
fromit." Rufus King to Charles King, December 1g, 1822. Life and Correspondence
of Rufus King, VI. 488. See Clay's reasons for his position in Colton, Life, Correspondence and Speeches of Clay, IV. 70, 72.

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